Hear Me Out – a Vlog (video blog)

Even though I work primarily on the Pre-Sales side designing and architecting customer solutions, it is not uncommon for me to help with Post-Sales support. I will usually become involved at that juncture when a customer voices concerns about poor audio quality, and I need to troubleshoot. However, there is frequently a communication barrier when the end user generically summarizes the symptomotology as “crappy audio” or a similar unscientific description of the actual problem. A medical doctor has to run multiple diagnostic tests when a patient has a broad or ambiguous set of symptoms in order to narrow down many potential differential diagnoses. Similarly, when troubleshooting VoIP problems, several tools are used to get to the true root cause of the patients’ “audio illness.” I feel that we need a vocabulary to empower our end user patients to more ably describe the problems they experience with audio.

In keeping with the brief nature of this video blog I am going to keep the verbiage to a minimum. Below is a video (and audio) which will allow users to describe audio quality issues better thereby leading to a faster diagnosis and resolution. I also chose an appropriate song by Lady GaGa entitled “Telephone.” So crank up the volume of your speakers/headsets (high quality speakers or headphones recommended), lights …camera….ACTION (click the pic and Flash is necessary)

My career in telephony has unintentionally mimicked the life cycle of contact center solutions. In the 1990's, I was working on Rockwell's legacy ACD systems after which I then used server board-based systems at Aspect Solutions. Now, for the past five years, I have been working on IP systems for Interactive Intelligence. My primary background is in Cisco Systems data and voice networking and integrations. At Interactive Intelligence I am responsible for designing and architecting large-scale contact center solutions for strategic customers. I also regularly train our channel partners in systems engineering design methodologies. In my spare time, I enjoy making movies and the creative arts. People are surprised to hear that I am an avid Jazzerciser.